


Pantaleon

by Schemilix



Series: Blood and Gold [7]
Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schemilix/pseuds/Schemilix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first and the last of the Scions of Dark to walk in human skin. The Bringer of Order has waited for centuries - he will not settle for just anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pantaleon

_Treat with me._

Vormav would sooner trust an asp. The voice in the Stone has been a steadfast companion for – it has been years now. From the first he was aware that the being in the Stone was no angel called down to aid the Zodiac Braves. It had come into his possession as such, a gift to a newly ordained Grand Master, and for many years it had remained just that – a gift. Inert as it had been with Molay, beautiful and strangely tempting, but silent. He kept it nearby out of respect for his position and because it was a pleasant thing to behold in the austerity of his office. 

But as she weakened, it quickened. First he found himself drawn to it first, before anything, just the simple habit of touching the carved facets. Contemplating it – a meteor? The crystal was unwordly. Perhaps the legends spoke true, and it was god-given. He doubted that. The presence inside was shifting, foetal, yearning. It was no more divine than his left boot, but Vormav listened. Curiosity, after all, killed the cat.

At first it was simply than when he felt at his most furious, most frustrated, when he wished most fervently to somehow reach into her and pull out the sickness, to rip anything apart to save her even as he felt himself blaming her – it was when he was most _vulnerable_ that it did a very simple thing. It listened. And from that came the simple knowledge that something, somewhere, understood that his cruelty was not because he did not love her, but only because he did not know _how_ to love her.

And so she dwindled, and parted, and he grew absent from her memory, from those who reminded him of her. He was there and, when his nights were now silent without her whispers and her hisses of pain, it was in his dreams that he felt it. Shaping them with some vague intent, at the edges only, smoothing like clay. Vormav pushed 'him' back. He knew now that this creature was male in some sense, had a name in some sense, but not quite how or what.

Then the words. The talking until he, Hashmal, was a guarded friend. Demon, for certain, of the vilest sort. But this Lion was an intelligent and often sympathetic demon, one bound solely within the confines of Vormav's office drawer. At arms length he spoke to him, listened to the tales that only a demon could make believable. After all, a Stone spoke to him. Perhaps the decades of fighting for nothing and the loss of a woman he could pretend to fight for had finally taken his sanity and he was, in fact, talking to a rock. 

The days had become difficult, he knew that. He had seen men fall into despair and considered himself immune, but sleep evaded him, or clung too thickly, and his usually formidable temper had become entirely out of his control. Barich avoided him; Loffrey, most tellingly, _understood_ him. Meliadoul grew into a woman absent from his affections, which in some way he knew he had buried. So much like him all the same, a furious valkyrie strong with her father's blood. Maybe he was proud of her.

All this Hashmal heard. From him the Lion took the concept of 'fatherhood' and in some loose sense applied it to those 'others', ten of them and one whom he regarded as above them all. Vormav could feel in the alien consciousness something like loss, things very much like vengeance and sorrow, perhaps even love. Simulacra, but they burned with recognition nonetheless.

Of course, Vormav knows his behaviour has become questionable. Any man holding a jewel to his breast and thinking to it for hours on end has, as the folk from Goug would say, a screw loose. He finds it increasingly difficult to care. In a place that has become black, it, at least, glows fierce with gold.

 _Treat with me_.

And here they are. The implication is clear, what with the understanding they have. He needs blood. He needs skin and bone, too, but mostly, he needs blood. One of their topics of conversation is that of warfare, distanced by millennia and half a world but remarkably similar. 

It wants his body. Most likely, it wants his body without Vormav's own interference. All demons do. At the same time, he feels as though he has some idea of this in-Hume being. By now, he can understand the need to shed an ocean of blood to bring a single person back _perfectly_.

Or perhaps, he will merely die, and in a pointless way devoid of any of the Tengille heroism. It wouldn't even be a notorious death. Nonetheless he takes out the sword, and, placing its point against his breast, he says, 

“I will.”

 ---

Blood splatters and the Stone awakens. Vormav feels as if claws are reaching into the wound even as he pulls the sword from his flesh, hearing it clatter to the floor as if from a distance. He is on his knees, gasping, as the presence gropes around his insides, slips hands into the corners of him. His fingers become gloves. Hashmal _pulls_ and the world bends into his will, Vormav's body moves as he wishes, puppet-like. He fights for control and finds none as his skin splits, his bones rend. Blood blinds him, dripping down the lines of his face and into his mouth. The pain is ecstasy and the ecstasy is pain. 

Vormav screams and another, greater voice joins it: the Lion's roar, loud enough to wake the Sun. 


End file.
